1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a remote control receiver having a learning function for responding to a wide variety of remote control transmitters.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The great majority of home electric appliances today are constructed so as to be remotely controlled by remote control transmitters. There is, however, a problem in such systems in that the signal codes of products offered by the same maker are not unified depending on the type of appliance. To overcome such a problem, a learning-functionalized remote control transmitter has been proposed in which all kinds of operational objects can be remotely controlled by use of a common remote control transmitter irrespective of the maker or the type of remote control object.
A conventional learning-functionalized remote control transmitter 1 is depicted in FIG. 1. This transmitter is capable of learning remote control signals of a plurality of remote control transmitting units 2.sub.1 through 2.sub.n, each having a different transmitting code, by relating a carrier and transmitting code to the instruction content for every signal. Once the learning is finished, the remote control signals corresponding to the necessary instructions are transmitted to objective appliances 3.sub.1 through 3.sub.n in place of the exclusive-use remote control transmitting units 2.sub.1 to 2.sub.n. In other words, all remote control transmitting signals are transmitted by the transmitter 1 to control the objective appliances 3.sub.1 to 3.sub.n.
The learning-functionalized remote control transmitter 1 of FIG. 1 has such an advantage that the transmitter is capable of integrating the plurality of remote control transmitting units 2.sub.1 to 2.sub.n having different signal codes and unitizing these functions into one. There arises, however, a problem in which an operational mistake peculiar to the transition often takes place when a particular remote control transmitting unit which the user is accustomed to is changed over to the remote control transmitter 1 having a learning function. Namely, because all the electric appliances for domestic use are remotely controlled by the single remote control transmitter 1 of FIG. 1, it is absolutely necessary to prepare a large number of keys for inputting the instructions. Also, where some keys are provided with additional functions to miniaturize the keyboard, extra key operations such as selection of the functions by use of a function change-over key are needed in addition to ordinary key operations. Hence, much time is required until the user becomes well accustomed to such key-operations.